Antony Jenkins has one of the toughest jobs in banking sorting out the
problems facing Barclays.

Though Antony Jenkins is unlikely to have many illusions about the scale of the task facing him as the new chief executive of Barclays, a quick scan of the FSA’s January letter to the bank’s board is a good reminder of just how bad relations got between the one of Britain’s largest and most important financial institutions and its main regulator.

“We continue to view Barclays as one of the most challenging firms in both its regulatory as well as its accounting approaches,” wrote the FSA.

Investors, too, had been worried for some time about the way the bank was being run.

“We only have a small shareholding in them because we haven’t liked the way the business has been developed in recent years,” says one major UK fund manager.

Commenting on his appointment, Mr Jenkins admitted Barclays had made “serious mistakes in recent years” and that the bank had “clearly failed to keep pace with our stakeholders’ expectations”.

However, admitting past mistakes and atoning for them are two very different things and the new Barclays boss faces a tough job convincing the outside world that he can turn around the bad boy of British banking.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph today, Mr Jenkins was clear that one of his main priorities would be dealing with the fallout from recent scandals, namely Libor-rigging, interest rate swap mis-selling, and the Serious Fraud Office investigation into the fees paid by the bank in relation to a capital injection by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund at the height of the financial crisis in 2008.

“I want to deal with these things as expeditiously as possible,” he said.

Settling the US and British investigations into Libor has already cost Barclays £290m, while the current cost of swap mis-selling compensation is estimated by the bank at £450m. Both these numbers could still rise as several investigations remain outstanding and private lawsuits stack up.

Wisely then, Mr Jenkins has made no commitment to stand by the 13pc return on equity target that was a key part of predecessor Bob Diamond’s investment pitch for the bank. Instead, he is now only offering to make a return in excess of the bank’s cost of equity of 11.5pc, giving him considerably more wiggle room.

To achieve his target, Mr Jenkins has presented to the board his own three to five-year plan intended to stabilise the business and turn Barclays into what he calls a “go to” bank.

Unlike the “Bobtimism” of his investment banker forerunner, Mr Jenkins’s plans reflect his 29-year career in retail and business banking.

City analysts broadly welcomed his appointment, with Deutsche Bank describing him as “the natural choice”.

Indeed, in the current climate his lack of exposure to investment banking, which remains a substantial part of Barclays, is seen as a positive, leaving him untainted by recent scandals.

Inevitably, this lack of investment banking experience is also being used to rekindle rumours that Barclays could offload its so-called “casino banking” arm, however Mr Jenkins he was “committed to a universal banking structure”.

For Sir David Walker, the incoming chairman of Barclays, the choice of Mr Jenkins has been seen as an attempt by him to demonstrate a clear break with the bank’s recent past.

“I think this gives them an opportunity to reset their relations with investors and we welcome the chance to get to know him better,” said one Barclays shareholder.

Mr Jenkins has already begun to meet with investors as well as politicians and senior regulators to show he is serious about making a fresh start.

Politically, Barclays’ position could hardly be worse, with the Treasury Select Committee this month describing Mr Diamond’s testimony to it on Libor manipulation as lacking “candour and frankness” and “at times highly selective”.

It would seem that for Mr Jenkins, and Barclays, things can only get better.